Andrea Grimes is a powerhouse reproductive rights journalist here in Texas and, I’m proud to say, a good friend. She was tweeting up a righteous and smart storm today so I asked her if I could put her words here and she agreed.

It’s real easy to write off Wendy Davis when you’re not facing the impending threat to your actual daily freedoms that is Greg Abbott.

Davis’ recent remarks on the 20 week ban are real solidly in keeping with what she stood for during the session.

If you were looking for a ‘free abortion on demand’ politician, you weren’t looking for Wendy Davis. We all knew this. This is Texas.

We’re fighting against people who WANT TO REPEAL ROE VS WADE and TAKE FOOD OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF CHILDREN. We can work with Wendy.

I was legit surprised by Davis’ position on open carry; it’s bizarre pandering to a group who’d never vote for her in the first place.

But this 20 week shit? Is straight up STANDARD PLAY for Texas Democrats. A position taken by lots and LOTS of our liberal lawmakers.

Like, were coastal pundits listening during the filibuster or just frothing over a pretty lady with fun shoes putting on a silly Texas show? Davis NEVER ARGUED against the premise of a 20-week ban. She argued against fetal pain and against a lack of exceptions.

The reality is that RJ folks in Texas have known for a LONG ASS TIME that Davis’ repro politics are not on the cutting edge.

Do I wish Davis would support an outright repeal of the 20 week ban YES I DO. THAT SHIT IS FUCKED UP. But here’s what we’re working with.

I know that people in Texas are going to get very sick, going to die, going to be infertile, if we don’t get a Gov. with an ounce of sense.

LIKE YOU REALIZE GREG ABBOTT WANTS TO PRIVATIZE OUR SCHOOLS AND SET OUR LAKES AND RIVERS AFIRE WITH GASOLINE AND CHEMICALS RIGHT?

Wendy Davis has good, smart, reasonable, practical ideas about how to fix the shit that is fucked up about Texas. I’m not bailing on her.

One of my coastal-dwelling FB friends, who claims to be a fellow “soldier,” called Wendy Davis “fucking awful” today. I don’t need that kind of “soldier.” That dude is not even ON THE SAME FUCKING BATTLEFIELD AS I AM. The “fucking awful” dude then tagged me in a post asking me to explain, to/for him, why WD isn’t “fucking awful.” GUESS WHO GAVE NO FUCKS

And like, fuck everybody who thinks the dumbass “having it all” conversation doesn’t come into play on this WD stuff. Like, we cannot even have one fucking moment where we’re not picking a female politician apart for her (perceived) failures.

But fundamentally IDEK why I bother with this shit, because the people who weren’t here for TX last year, last EVER, still aren’t.

And straight up, Wendy Davis is REALLY FUCKING GOOD on a lot of issues that enable Texans to live their lives and prosper.

ABSOLUTELY a 20 week abortion ban affects people who are the most marginalized, and FUCK 20 WEEK ABORTION BANS. But shit is BIGGER THAN THAT

This is the fucked up shit about “pro-choice” being the metric for how we decide who’s on “our team” or whatever.

Repro justice is about a lot fucking more than saying “I don’t support a 20 week abortion ban.” It’s about food, voting rights, LGBT rights.

I’m not looking for a damn tally of “pro-choice” gotchas. I’m looking for a governor who believes in PEOPLE’S RIGHT TO FUCKING EAT

I would LOVE LOVE LOVE if WD came out all ‘free abortion on demand.’ But we are talking about REAL LIFE and PRACTICAL POLITICS. This is it.

BECAUSE YOU KNOW THE FUCK WHAT? REPEAL THE 20 WEEK ABORTION BAN AND LO TEXANS STILL CAN’T ACCESS FOOD, HEALTH CARE. Saddle your high horse the fuck up over your own willful ignorance about what WD stands for. You’ll be riding over the bodies of Texans.

Political purity is a privilege. We don’t have it here in Texas, and TBH if you think you have it in a blue state, you’re deluded.

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11 Responses

I think maybe twitter has a tendency to make people overexcited. Why don’t we all give ourselves 24 hours to be calm, silent and reflect? All this violent language from people who want to be nonviolent.

I have a slightly different take; I would NEVER suggest not backing Wendy Davis or truly believing she’s better for Texas and Texas women. But I don’t know this positions is “smart politics” even for Texas. Maybe it was not the highly-calculated statement she meant and she stepped in it, but I don’t think this parsing of position saves her voters in the middle. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe some pollster has told her differently, but she’s already branded “pro-Abortion” by Greg Abbott” and I’m not sure meanly-mouthing the 20-week ban is going to convince any voter that cares on that issue.

I was OUT with “open carry.” I have never seen a gun that wasn’t meant to kill someone. I watched a lot of television from my middle-school years to the present. All the guns were open carry. The cowboys and gangsters had their hands on their arms at all times. Wendy started with education. Next came open carry. Which group dropped a few hundred thousand into her campaign? Couldn’t she have waited to announce open carry after same-sex marriage and healthcare?
When I sat about three yards from her, she said she was for equality; the workplace, in the economy, in education, in marriage, in family planning. There was no mention of the naked gun.
I signed up and worked for her. Now, I’m re-signing. Let the cowboys in Texas vote for her. But I doubt if they will.

Woah. Here’s the real deal. Dems, Libs and independents are all individual thinkers. Unlike the gun-slinging, bible thumping, mouth breathers – we don’t march in lock step. And thus, we lose to the red, tea-party menace over and over. Who gives a flying fig if a licensed John Wayne Wannabe carries his six shooter in plain view when your other option is for any crack-headed cowthing who owns a pistola to carry openly under the god given right of ‘constitutional carry.’ Abbott supporters are voting against us based on a fabricated liberal agenda that has been force fed to them for the last 30 years. Meanwhile, we argue amongst ourselves over our different wonks without paying any heed to the oppositions true agenda – like “constitutional carry”, banning reproductive rights, rescinding no-fault divorce, etc. get over yourselves for just a minute, take a page out of the (R) playbook and think about what you are FIGHTING AGAINST – and if you don’t know – educate yourself here: http://s3.amazonaws.com/texasgop_pre/assets/original/2012Platform_Final.pdf

No get back up on the same page with each other – you crazy, beautiful, brilliant individual thinkers and lets get Davis a win!!!

As a man, I was so proud of Wendy Davis’ stand in the opposition to the knuckle dragging TX lawmakers. Men should have no say on abortion in the first place.Of the 2 genders necessary for creating that which is aborted, only one deposits getting nothing in return, while the other agrees(consents) to the transaction only to have to deal with a possible outcome that disallows a depositing and walking away alone, for she has now an entity that has grabbed her body and now relies on it for the symbiotic bond that fetus’s require to even eventually come close to becoming a human being.
So, Wendy’s support of a 20-week ban, while unfair to those few who are faced with being forced to carry a possible un-viable fetus til birth, and whose fetus that may die soon after being born, as a man I can only think Wendy’s womanhood perhaps may know more about this issue personally. I’ve not seen her reasoning in support of the ban, only mostly the outrage of those who say, ‘How in hell can she do such a thing?’ None yet have said what about her decision they dislike, only that they dislike it, and with good reason, but I’m a man, so I’m unsure I’m in as great a position to argue against her without more info, after all, she is for so many other great things for so many people, and Ann Richards daughter Cecille seems enamored over Wendy running for Governor.
I wonder though, I realise that for many whose pregnancy runs into that formerly 24 week wall, now, a 20 week one, if there’s that many who have to decide to abort at that late stage, due to the chances that they were planning to give birth, and the abortion was considered so late due to the Mom’s health risks, or that of the viable/unviable fetus. At least Wendy is not supportive of banning abortion based on fetal heart beats, fetal pain and the idea that by the time women find out they are pregnant 3 months have passed and if up to the Pro-Lifers….wait call them what they are ‘forced birthers’, cuz’ women generally are Pro-Life, REAL Pro-Life, not a the George Orwell styled euphemism for ‘forced birthers’ that seems to give them an out even though they approve of murdering abortion doctors and abortion healthcare workers all over the place.
The ONLY way women in this country are going to get true representation, is when there’s Gender Parity in state and federal legislatures, their vote is not enough, Since women are about 53% of the total population, we need 50% women/men ratio in Congress of women members, and hopefully voters will vote for the Emily’s List ideological group of women, those looking ahead and for Progressive ideas, never Neoliberals, or Conservative religious Right suckups.

Darn, I wasn’t finished, suddenly the comment posted and boom here I am. I’m with the first woman in Congress’s view, Rep Jeannette Rankin, who said of women; “We’re half the People; we should be half the Congress.” AND, ‘I may be the first woman elected, but I won’t be the last.’ As I argued in the 70s for the newly recently revised to include LGBTs, Native Americans, immigrants, etc, the ERA Amendment, which when it didn’t pass I was so disapponted, cuz’ it seemed then was the time for it to pass, as I made friends with a newly graduated woman got hired as an engineer at a paper mill made me hopeful even though it was in SC, and I was one of the few men who felt it was great that women were working in formerly ‘men’ only jobs. Men used to say the women took jobs away from the men by doing this, and while there’s some truth in a way, no way is the world like Erick Erickson claimed months ago that Feminists were not supposed to be breadwinners, that it was eroding the masculine gender(I LMAO at his ignorance).
So,blathering on, Wendy Davis has her reasons for supporting the 20- week ban, and I hope to find out what they are, as it may have something to do with her experience as a woman. I once new a young girl who broke my heart yearly, as she would get pregnant, get money from the state/from a church group for help with the baby, and end up giving up the kid to the state, She gave up 5 kids when I knew her, I knew her as we both ate at a local soup kitchen that provided meals once a day(I was homeless then, but things did get better for me, truth be told mental health issues were in play for me at that time), but she didn’t seem to care that her kids were with strangers who may exploit them, who may abuse them. Those things are near and dear to me, for I was in a state childcare facility where the staff who was supposed to love and care for you were drawn there due to being pedophiles, or sadists who loved to beat us kids up. Sorry for the anecdote insertion there.
Some think being born is good enough, but I wish now and then I had never been born due to the scars I carry from being abused ina all manner of ways, and while I am no victim, as that would’ve made me a target, I can say I was victimised, and my sister and I, 18 months apart were mistakes. We didn’t fit the Dr Guttmacher’s quote:
“…no baby receives its full birthright unless it is born gleefully wanted by its parents.”-Dr Alan Guttmacher
So, just being born is not good enough, similar to unrequited love that isn’t returned, so to the feeling of being unwanted has followed me my entire life and toss in a few folks who were despicable humans who preyed on kids naviete, being forced to live in 2 orphanages(both religious ones, but the Pentecostals were the worst, beating you as if they wrote the Pearl’s manual on kid discipline, all the while claiming God loves you. Iwas to be there for 2 months, but 2 and a half years did the damage to me, something to do with experiences of being in the formative years of chldhood that can be dangerous for the child later in life.
But no matter, I came away from it all wanting to correct the awful childhood forced on me and make a better one for those like me, and for well, everyone, so I’m with Wendy Davis, as I think she too, wants to do that, make the world better for us all, just wrap the world in a blanket of caring for others while giving love and understanding as best one can to all those in the world humans and animal alike.(OMG, and yes, even to Conservatives.)

GOP members have 2 requirements, that they suckup to the religious Right, and they get at least one hemisphere lobotomised, many have 2 done to impress leadership and to emulate them by being just like them. So, when asked to comment as pundits the most you get from them is short bumper stickers styled phrases as if what they spout is an answer to any question they’re asked….but
ask a Democrat, a REAL one not those who pushed the leftys out of the party in the 80s and are called Bluedogs, TURD Way, or sumpin, you know Progressives like Tammy Baldwin, and Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, etc. REAL Democrats, and frankly, damn you can’t shut’em up, as they really have given thought to the question way long before it was even asked. Republicans, have just a small response to any relevancy, and that is…don’t look at me,, look at the Dems, and blah blah blah.
So, I’m with you, Alison Ingram, you are spot on, and we allow Bluedogs to our detriment because we truly are for freedom and inclusion of all.
Thanks Jessica for the chance to talk here, but I gotta warn you, my first time here, but I will be back…i.e., if you don’t mind.